Ta Da! I Am Still Alive!

It has been awhile since I have felt like sitting down and writing anything here. There are a variety of reasons. Not all of them negative. Mostly time passing faster than I suspected mixed in with a dash of boredom with my ownself. I was getting too down and out when writing. Self-confession and introspective drama only stretches so far before sickening me. I'm not saying I have been wrong. I am saying I have been enough on the side of serious thinking. Lethal for a recovering alcoholic. Oh how seriously I take myself, myself, myself...! Bleh! Best to remember that I am one among many and have so far not found one single thing unique about myself other than, of course, my DNA. So when I blow myself up to a huge proportion of anything I have stepped over the danger line. I mean, really!

So, I have these four cats. I don't even know which of me decided to take in four cats. It could not have been the practical me. (I do too have some practical part, smarty friends!) It certainly could not have been the part of me that grasps reality from time to time. I think, because they came into my life one at a time, that it was the mothering part of me. Yes, maternal instincts were dominant in each case. Four cats. I love them all. I wanted a dog. You can see that the maternal me was undoubtedly confused four times in a row. Imagine that! Stray animals and stray people are my achilles heel. One of the cats acts a little like a dog, which is kind of him. He must intuitively know that he should have been a dachsund. Darn! It  isn't as if I can just let them go or give them back. I don't want to for one thing...the main thing. Four cats!! Is you crazy?

Mr. Owl has been gone for awhile now. I resent progress as trees fall and roads are built. The bunny rabbits and the squirrels and the owls and the little foxes disappear. I want to stand in the middle of the woods and scream, "NO!", but they have big bulldozers and scary looking men wearing hard hats and I am a 62 year old activist without a cause other than I miss my animal friends. Mr. Owl was my true friend. I pray he is happy and finding mice in abundance.

Back to work in a few minutes. Then time to feed the cats and sit and wonder what I am going to avoid doing for the remainder of the day.

Being Pathetic Is Boring

Enough of this tomfoolery! It is time to rise up and reclaim myself from the ashes of the most recent crash and burn event in the life of my family. There has been collateral damage this time. I suppose family events rarely remain the property of those in the midst of the fray. For years I have accepted this as a normal response to trouble in the family. It becomes overwhelming when an inordinate share of that trouble seems to come from my side of the family. Unfortunately I have participated in bemoaning, verbally running down and judging my own situations allowing family members the privilege of judging, advising and generally degrading the events in my life that are less than savory and there are many when I include my children and my spouses along with myself. I recently realized that I am sick and tired of the low self-esteem and self-degradation I have decided were rightfully earned. I realized I have participated in creating those for myself. I now realize I don't want to feel that way anymore. I have compared myself to people in my family who appear to have "it together". I have felt less than for too long. A dear friend told me recently that I am good enough just like I am and to be myself and not worry about other people's opinions of me. She gave me a sense of freedom that has taken root and blossomed. I am a good person. I love deeply. My immediate family's life has been difficult through the years. I have enabled and I have done tough love and I have been stupid enough to share every moment of my fears and angers with other family members. This has created a sense of ownership in them that is not healthy for them or for me. Why I just woke up to that I do not know. Now I am working on losing the resentment I feel and to accepting my part in creating an environment that looks and smells an awful lot like superiority and feels an awful lot like humiliation. Today I have come round the bend in recognizing that this has taken place over a long period of time and that my family members do love and care for us deeply. I can see why they are concerned and I can see how I have given permission for that to become the passing of judgement in my mind based on their opinions. I am such a twit. 62 years old and waking up a piece at a time. Not saying that the problems exisiting today in the world of my family are o.k. or that I approve or that I have responded in a psychologically healthy way or that I can even grasp them. Just saying that I don't want to appear pathetic in my own skin anymore. I am who I am and God is changing that at a pace I have to run to keep up with these days. Being pathetic is boring and exhausting and in a way it is yet another form of ego run riot. I love all of my extended family very much. I just don't want to hang my laundry out on them to dry anymore. I don't want to pretend or explain or pretty up who I am and what happens in my life. I kinda think I painted myself with this brush of shame and inadequacy. I compared myself and found myself lacking. I who know so intimately how much my Father God loves me have taken on the form of ugly and unloveable for myself. The truth is the truth. Me and mine are messy people. I am not ashamed of that anymore for some reason that I cannot explain. See, I told you God is changing me even before I catch up to the change. I am truly bored with this pathos. The old saying, "It's not my brother, not my sister but it's me, oh Lord, standing in the need of prayer." about says it all. I will no longer participate in my own degradation and humiliation. That war is over. Praise God!

Life Is Just A Chair of Bowlies

I am in the mood to quote some of the words from a David Allan Coe song. It is one of my favorite songs which in no way infers that I remember the name of the song but I do know these lyrics and they represent just a bit of what I am feeling today. I may be the only person to understand the correlation but that is good enough for me. So here are part of the lyrics of the song I love so much:

"Well I was drunk the day my mom got out of prison
And I went to pick her up in the rain
But before I could get to the station in the pick-up truck
She got runned over by a damned old train

 

And I'll hang around as long as you will let me
And I never minded standin' in the rain
And you don't have to call me darlin', darlin'
You never even called me, well I wondered why you don't call me?
Why don't you ever call me by my name?"

Reading these lyrics I wonder how in the heck they fit but they do and that is about it. The last couple of days have been brutal. Simply brutal. I don't want to drink but I don't mind a song about drinking.

Peace out!